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Embracing the Bomb: Ethics, Morality, and Nuclear Deterrence in the U.S. Air

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Bret J. Cillessen

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Embracing the Bomb: Ethics, Morality, and Nuclear Weapons in the U.S. Air Force, 1945-1955

• by

Bret J. Cillessen

A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History.

Chapel Hill

1997

Approved by

Advisor: Professor Richard H. Kohn

Reader: Professor Tami Davis Biddle

SSL n J: '. leader: Professor Michael Hunt

^QffAHOTISBffiGfflDl

©1997 Bret J. Cillessen

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

11

ABSTRACT Bret J. Cillessen: Embracing the Bomb: Ethics, Morality, and Nuclear Weapons in the U.S.

Air Force, 1945-1955 (Under the direction of Richard H. Kohn)

For four years, from 1945-1949, the U.S. Air Force was the only institution on the

planet responsible for planning nuclear strikes and capable of delivering such a blow. Even

in the mid-1950s, the Air Force was still by far the most powerful nuclear force and would be

for years. At the same time, an intense moral debate surrounded atomic and nuclear

weapons.

This paper addresses how leading U.S. Air Force officers viewed nuclear weapons in

ethical terms. Specifically, at a time when no one else had to, how and why did professional

Air Force officers come to accept planning for, threatening, and training to take millions

upon millions of human lives, many of them civilian, with nuclear weapons?

The work draws extensively from the manuscript collections and printed primary

sources of Air Force generals to show that these men ardently believed they were traveling

the road of higher morality.

in

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper would not have been possible with the support and direction of many

people. I am most indebted to my advisor, Dr. Richard H. Kohn. I also wish to thank Dr.

Tami Davis Biddle (Duke University), Major General (ret.) John W. Huston (Professor

Emeritus, U.S. Naval Academy), Brigadier General (ret.) Malham M. Wakin (U.S. Air Force

Academy), Colonel Steven D. Chiabotti (Air University, Maxwell AFB), Mr. Duane J. Reed

and his staff at the U.S. Air Force Academy Special Collections Library, Dr. Donald G.

Mathews (UNC Chapel Hill), and Dr. Daniel T. Kuehl (National Defense University), for

their significant ideas, assistance, and constructive criticism.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Air Force

Institute of Technology, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the College Football

Association, and Hitachi. Their support made my stay at the University of North Carolina at

Chapel Hill, and this paper, possible.

IV

To

Mom and Dad

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

Introduction 1

Strategic Bombing and the Early Ethical Discourse on Nuclear Weapons 5

The Air Force Views Hiroshima 16

The Moral Revolution of 1945? 19

The First Atomic Autumn 25

International Controls and the Soviet Threat 28

Cloaking and Denying 31

Air Force Ethics and the Public Forum 35

Why Did They Think That Way? 41

The Air Force Atomic Age Ethics in Practice: The Berlin Blockade, Soviet Atomic Bomb, and Korean War 49

The Real Revolution: Soviets, Stockpiles, and H-Bombs 59

Conclusion 63

Bibliography 65

VI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AAC Army Air Corps

AAF Army Air Forces

HAMGMC Henry Arnold/Murray Green Manuscript Collection (at the USAFA SCL)

HBMC Harry Borowski Manuscript Collection (at the USAFA SCL)

HHMC Haywood Hansell Manuscript Collection (at the USAFA SCL)

LKMC Laurence Kuter Manuscript Collection (at the USAFA SCL)

LOC Library of Congress

MD Manuscript Division

NTMC Nathan Twining Manuscript Collection (at the USAFA SCL)

SAC Strategic Air Command

UN United Nations

US: United States

USAFA SCL United States Air Force Academy Special Collections Library

USAF HO United States Air Force Historical Office

Vll

INTRODUCTION

The United States currently stockpiles thousands of nuclear warheads tucked away in

silos throughout barren stretches of the open plains, in sophisticated submarines lurking in

the murky depths of the ocean, and behind the heavily guarded gates of big bomber bases.

"Little Boy" and "Fat Man," the only two atomic weapons ever used in war, together killed

or wounded approximately 200,000 Japanese in the span of three days in 1945.1 Today's

thermonuclear weapons can pack up to 1,000 times the destructive power of those first

devices, and these modern weapons can be delivered on target in a matter of minutes.2

Almost as incredible as the destruction a future nuclear war could wreak on civilization has

been the amount of national and global time and treasure already spent building, maintaining,

and threatening to use nuclear military forces. Not surprisingly, then, an intense moral

debate has always surrounded atomic and nuclear weapons.

For four years, from 1945-1949, the U.S. Air Force was the only institution on the

planet responsible for planning nuclear strikes and capable of delivering such a blow. Even

in the mid-1950s, the Air Force was still by far the most powerful nuclear force and would be

for years to come. Therefore, at a time when no one else had to think about the issue, how

did professional Air Force officers come to accept planning for, threatening, and training to

take millions upon millions of human lives, many of them civilian, with nuclear weapons?

The answer is that in 1945 air leaders had an unshakable commitment to the U.S.

constitution, a personal and professional devotion to strategic bombing, and an ardent belief

lThe United States Strategic Bombing Survey: European and Pacific War Summaries (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, reprinted 1987, originally published in 1945 and 1946, respectively), pp. 100-101. Many other estimates put the death toll somewhat higher.

2The Hiroshima bomb was a 15 kiloton (KT, or thousands of tons of TNT) equivalent and the Nagasaki bomb 22 KT, while typical modern day Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) yield 330 KT. Many bomb are measured on the megaton (millions of tons of TNT) scale though. See Christy

that great strength could deter war. They also had a conviction that America would never

fight an unjust war or a war in an unjust manner, so whatever was necessary militarily was

permissible morally.3 While certain philosophers might have argued that it might be

necessary to lose a war to maintain moral behavior, air leaders dedicated to preventing and

winning wars for the United States could never accept this because to them, winning wars for

their beloved country was a moral imperative. Air leaders thought America was the

unsurpassed embodiment of freedom, democracy, morality, and justice in the world, and that

the United States was worth defending at any cost. After retiring, General Thomas Power,

who had been Deputy Commander at the Strategic Air Command (SAC) under Curtis E.

LeMay before becoming SAC Commander, outlined what he thought was the greatness of

America, and the promise of its future. These elements included a "sound economy and

prosperous industry, . . . scientific progress and good schools, . . . civil defense and the

maintenance of law and order,. . . the practice of religion and respect for the rights and

convictions of others, ... a high standard of morals and wholesome family life, . . . [and]

honesty in public office and freedom of the press."4 General Curtis LeMay, Commanding

General of SAC from 1948-1957, explained that he swore allegiance to the Constitution

because of the "freedom with order" it represented.

These views, coupled with the fact that air leaders did not at first believe that the

atomic bomb constituted a military or moral revolution, led the Air Force to embrace the

bomb as simply a better weapon. In the event of war, responsibility for the use of the bomb

Campbell, Nuclear Facts: A Guide to Nuclear Weapon Systems and Strategy (New York: Hamlyn, 1984), p. 106.

3Military may be simply defined as the force deemed necessary to compel an enemy to comply with one's war objectives. For an in-depth discussion of the topic see Myres S. McDougal and Florentino P. Feliciano, Law and Minimum Public World Order (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), p. 72.

4Thomas S. Power with Albert A. Arnhym, Design For Survival, (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1964), p. 253.

would rest on the shoulders of an aggressor that would not be the United States, and the

orders would come from civilians elected by the American people. Air leaders also carried

over into the atomic age their preexisting belief that strategic bombing was more humane

than other forms of warfare because it avoided indecisive, drawn-out, bloody ground action.5

Some senior air leaders did support early initiatives for international controls on

atomic technology and weapons. But after the failure of these plans in the United Nations

(UN) in 1946, and the hardening of the conflict between the West and the Soviet Union into

the Cold War the next spring, air leaders became fully committed to a strong nuclear

deterrence policy expressly directed against the Soviet Union. Air leaders' view of the

Soviet Union helped them justify planning for nuclear war just as their consideration of

Germany and Japan had done in World War II. As Les K. Adler and Thomas G. Paterson put

it in their 1970 article "Red Fascism," "Once Russia was designated the 'enemy' by

American leaders," they argued, "Americans transferred their hatred for Hitler's Germany to

Stalin's Russia with considerable ease and persuasion. . . . This nightmare of 'Red Fascism' .

. . left its mark on the events of the Cold War and its warriors."6 Indeed, U.S. air leaders

believed the Soviet Union stood for aggression, enslavement, and totalitarianism. In 1956,

for example, Curtis LeMay told an audience at the University of Notre Dame that "there are

two social philosophies now in conflict. These are democracy based on Christian principles,

5After retiring, General Curtis E. LeMay recounted, "Billy Mitchell [a prominent and controversial inter-war air leader who is considered the father of U.S. strategic bombing theory and practice] believed in strategic air power, the idea that air power could be used to strike an enemy's heartland and destroy his means and willingness to wage war. The net effect would be costly in civilian casualties, but theoretically it would in the long ran, prevent even more casualties by ending a war without the carnage and indecisive land battles of the First World War." Curtis E. LeMay and Bill Yenne, Superfortress: The Story of the B-29 and American Air Power (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1988), p. 6.

6Les K. Adler and Thomas G. Paterson, "Red Fascism: The Merger of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the American Image of Totalitarianism, 1930's-1950's," American Historical Review, vol. LXXV, number 4, (April 1970), pp. 1046; 1064.

and Communism based on atheistic, materialistic principles."7 General Nathan F. Twining,

Air Force Chief of Staff from June 1953 through June 1957, later declared, "we put a value

on human life the enemy does not understand or practice."8 And Brigadier General Dale O.

Smith, writing for the Air University Quarterly Review in the winter of 1954-1955,

articulated the Air Force view of the Soviet Union. He branded America's foe as a "brute,"

"maniac," "ruthless nation that has no compunction in keeping twelve million of its own

population in slave labor; that has deliberately starved four million men, women, and

children in an economic experiment of collectivization; [and] that has killed or uprooted

millions from formerly free and independent nations such as Estonia, Poland, and China."9

Air leaders considered Communism to be so evil that they were prepared to counter it by any

means sanctioned by their political masters.

Early Cold War events such as the 1948 Berlin blockade, the 1949 Soviet atomic test,

and the limited war in Korea from 1950 to 1953 only reinforced Air Force ideas and

quickened the Air Force march forward into the arms race. Finally, air leaders early in the

atomic age vigorously proclaimed their ideas and ethics to the public in a clear, consistent,

and constant attempt to shape national policy.

To understand Air Force thinking one must set it within the contexts of the experience

with strategic bombing and the spectrum of ethical discourse on bombing at the end of World

War II. What Air Force officers were not saying, and why, was almost as important as what

they did say.

7Curtis E. LeMay, "Address to the University of Notre Dame, 22 Feb 1956, Curtis E. LeMay papers, box 71, Manuscript Division (MD), Library of Congress (LOC).

8Nathan F. Twining, Neither Liberty Nor Safety a Hard Look at U.S. Military Policy and Strategy, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), p. 230.

STRATEGIC BOMBING AND THE EARLY ETHICAL DISCOURSE ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The advent of the airplane in the early twentieth century changed war in profound

ways. These changes were first manifested during World War I, when the aircraft's inherent

qualities of speed, range, flexibility, and most importantly its presence in a new physical

dimension (the air), began to alter warfare. Aircraft's most important roles in the Great War

were to observe enemy activity, to spot artillery for armies, and to intercept other aircraft.

However, aircraft were also used to strike at an enemy's war-making capacity, including

such targets as factories, oil reserves, large rearward supply depots, and urban populations.

Though these efforts were rudimentary and had little effect on the fighting at the time,

strategic bombing was born, and so, too, was the ethical debate surrounding the bombing of

targets in and near cities—not to mention the outright targeting of "civilian" populations.

Prior to World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps settled upon a doctrine of high-

altitude precision daylight bombing, following the "industrial web" theory, which sought to

tear down the enemy's ability to make war by destroying a few key targets (e.g. ball

bearings, oil, electricity). Although bombing for psychological effect was contemplated as a

just means of destroying an enemy's will to fight, Air Corps officers believed that their

"precision" doctrine provided the most effective way to fight a war since it would, in theory,

deprive an enemy of the tools with which to fight. Furthermore, it was national policy not to

target civilians for both humanitarian and legal reasons. This was due in large measure to the

public's aversion to what they saw as indiscriminate bombing carried out in the 1936-1938

Spanish Civil War and again by the Germans and Japanese at the beginning of World War II.

Indiscriminate bombing by the Germans at such places as Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Coventry

Brigadier General Dale O. Smith, "The Morality of Retaliation," Air University Quarterly Review, 8:3

did incite calls for retaliation, but American leaders preferred to avoid indiscriminate

bombing in the war. While air leaders maintained the intention of daylight "precision"

bombing in the European theater, in practice they were often thwarted by the heavy cloud

cover prevailing over northern Europe, so they sometimes settled for what was not much

more than area bombing. In Japan, heavy cloud cover and the high winds of the jet stream

totally stymied the "precision" effort, prompting the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) to switch

to low-level, nighttime incendiary raids on entire Japanese cities. While these raids

destroyed Japanese industry, they also resulted in large numbers of civilian deaths.10 By the

end of the war, such raids were the norm against Japan. Because by 1945 air leaders had

come to terms intellectually with large scale strategic bombing, they displayed no moral

qualms about planning to use the atomic bomb early in the atomic age.

Army Air Forces (AAF) practices evolved by the end of the war, whereby more and

more enemy cities were leveled causing more and more enemy civilian casualties. Some

historians such as Michael Sherry have bluntly branded it as the "evil of American

bombing."11 But most air leaders early in the atomic age maintained that American bombers

traveled the road of higher morality by ending the war sooner than it might otherwise have

ended. They also maintained that either the enemy city dwellers were, indeed, combatants

due to their involvement in manufacturing the tools of war, or that collateral damage—

(winter 1954-55), pp. 55-59. 10For a discussion of the prioritization of targeting, see Tami Davis Biddle, "British and American

Approaches to Strategic Bombing: Their Origins and Implementation in the World War II Combined Bomber Offensive," Journal of Strategic Studies, 18 (March 1995): 91-144.

nFor the Douhetian progression see Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). Douhet's thoughts are clearly expressed in Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, translated by Dino Ferrari (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1942, originally published in 1927). The "sin of American bombing" is the subject of Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987). For another thorough examination of the morality of World War II bombing see Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977).

unintentional damage deemed unavoidable—was much less than would have occurred

through a more protracted struggle. Yet, this moral debate over strategic bombing would

largely wait until after hostilities ceased, so it naturally focused on, and was severely

complicated by, the closing epic event of the war: the dropping of the atomic bombs.

The Spectrum of Ethical Discourse on Nuclear Weapons

Historian Paul Boyer has made the extraordinary point that, "All the major elements

of our contemporary engagement with nuclear reality took shape literally within days of

Hiroshima."12 While Gallup polls tell us that 85% of Americans immediately approved of

the dropping of the bomb on Japan,13 the range of early ethical responses transcended that

sign of public agreement. In September 1945, 69% of Americans polled felt that it was

"good" that the atomic bomb was developed, while 17% held that it was "bad" and 14% had

no opinion.14 By October 1947, when the Cold War and the possibility of other, larger scale

uses of the bomb had become a reality, only 55% of those polled believed that the

development of the atomic bomb was "good," compared to 38% who thought it was "bad."

Yet at the same time, 70% of Americans polled advocated continuing to manufacture the

weapons.15 Apparently, no matter how nuclear weapons were viewed morally, a feeling that

the weapons were necessary had set in.

But the ethical discourse concerning nuclear weapons was much more complex than

simple statements of "good" and "bad." At one extreme lay the total pacifists who were

12Paul Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York, Pantheon Books, 1985), p. 1.

13Gallup Poll, 26 August 1945. 85% approved of dropping the bomb, 10% disapproved, and 5% expressed no opinion. By comparison, there was a 72% approval rating in the UK. See The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935-1971, vol. I (New York: Random House, 1972), pp. 521-522.

14Ibid., p. 527. 15Ibid.,p. 680.

appalled by nuclear weapons and who viewed any level of conflict, for any reason, not just

violence involving nuclear weapons, to be unacceptable. At the other extreme were the

nuclear millenialists who rejoiced at the prospect of a nuclear holocaust because such an

event promised the second coming of Christ. In the middle was a broad range of though

including more ambivalent, indifferent, or moderate reactions.

Closely related to the total pacifists, for whom nuclear weapons were just one more

tool of injustice to add to a list of criticisms of modern society, were the nuclear pacifists

who believed that the new destructive power embodied by nuclear weapons was not meant

for human control and that it crossed the threshold of morality.16 Many of these people

hoped for the immediate unilateral destruction of all existing bombs and a total halt to

production and testing regardless of what other nations were doing. In December 1946, 21%

of all Americans polled felt that this was the correct course of action.17 These were also the

first people to question the morality of deterrence policy. For example, Reverend Ernest

Fremont of the First Methodist Church of Evanston, Illinois, declared in early 1946 that

stockpiling atomic bombs would create "a world of fear, suspicion, and almost inevitable

final catastrophe."18 Fremont did not represent the majority of Protestant America, however.

An investigation of early post-World War II literature shows that Protestant Christians, who

were a majority in America, expressed many different opinions spanning the spectrum of

16The very night of the Hiroshima bombing, for example, broadcaster H.V. Kalterhorn exclaimed on NBC, "For all we know, we have created a Frankenstein! We must assume that with the passage of only a little time, an improved form of the new weapon we use today can be turned against us." Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 2.

"Gallup Poll, 15 December 1946, vol. I, p. 613. Most of these people valued a loyalty to all of humankind over any allegiance to a nation-state, and they championed the words of Philip Toynbee of Great Britain who succinctly stated the unilateralist position: "surely anything is better than a policy which allows for the possibility of nuclear war." Phillip Toynbee, The Fearful Choice: Nuclear Weapons, reprinted in Dennis Sherman, Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations, vol. II, (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1995), p. 317.

18Boyer, by the Bomb's, p. 227.

response. Catholic publications, on the other hand, almost unanimously denounced the

dropping of the bomb and producing nuclear weapons.

By the time the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb in 1949, most disarmament

advocates were calling for bilateral rather than unilateral action. These sentiments generally

arose from two different moral concerns: First, a future-orientedTear of nuclear war,

especially countervalue targeting—or targeting nuclear weapons against enemy population

centers usually for the purpose of retaliating for an actual enemy strike; and second, a

concern over present resource allocation and the view that a "deterrence" arms race would

rob the needy of funds and resources which were wasted on weaponry. Close on the heels of

the calls for disarmament were demands for international control of nuclear weapons or even

a sovereign world government. Although in September 1945 only 14% of those polled

desired UN control of the atomic bomb, with 73% urging that the U.S. government maintain

control,19 proponents of international control measures grew steadily in number until the end

of 1946. But the Truman administration's Baruch plan for international controls of atomic

energy, spearheaded by the long-time political advisor and public official Bernard M.

Baruch, failed to win UN approval that year and Baruch, himself, resigned from his leading

position in the United Nation's Atomic Energy Commission. By early 1947, anti-UN control

views gained great public momentum.20

Further along the spectrum of discourse were those who accepted the existence of

nuclear weapons as an unavoidable reality, but who sought production limits and an end to

nuclear testing. For some, the hope was to limit the possible destruction of a future war, but

"Gallup Poll, 12 September 1945, vol. I, p. 525. 20Many people, like Cornell professor Herbert W. Briggs, questioned why people thought such a

government would be a democracy when 75% of the world was controlled by dictatorships. Even if the UN

again, many people in this category focused on immediate concerns such as resource

allocation or environmental problems. In September 1945, a Gallup poll found that 27% of

Americans believed atomic experiments would someday destroy the world.21 Scientists of

the Manhattan Project, who sought to influence policy after the war and who were looked to

for guidance by the public, formed a largely unified interest group that consistently urged, to

no avail, international controls to atomic technology as well as major limits on production

and research. In the January 1951 edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, editor

Eugene Rabinowitch wrote sadly, "Scientists cannot but admit that their campaign has

failed."22

In the middle of the spectrum, a significant number of people looked upon atomic

technology with ambivalence. They hated to think of what a nuclear war might be like, but

they loved the deterrent security such weapons brought the United States.23 Another form of

ambivalence was a loathing of atomic weapons, but a profound hope for the good which

atomic technology could bring the world especially in the fields of energy and medicine.

Most characteristic of middle spectrum thought, however, was an "overshadowed" moral

concern. In general, people were more preoccupied with immediate concerns in their own

daily lives than with rather abstract questions of morality and a new weapon over which they

had no direct control.24 Only in April 1948, following the Communist coup in

was democratic, he argued, US perspectives would always be drowned out by more populous nations such as China and India. Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 41.

21Gallup Poll, 19 September 1945, vol. I, p. 527. 22Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p, 93. 23For example, on 16 March 1949, 48% of Americans polled thought that the war was "less likely" due

to the atomic bomb (25% thought war was more likely, 16% maintained that it made no difference, and 11% had no opinion). Similarly, on 24 April 1954, 54% of Americans responded that the hydrogen bomb made another war "less likely" (20% thought war was more likely, 15% said it made no difference, and 11% had no opinion). See Gallup Polls, 16 March 1949 and 24 April 1954, vol. II, pp. 797-98 and 1230, respectively.

24When polled in October 1945, August 1946, and August 1947, only 2-3% of people felt that the atomic bomb was the "most important problem" facing the nation. Gallup Polls, 22 October 1945, vol. I, pp. 534-5; 3 August 1946, vol. I, p. 590; 17 August 1947, vol. I, p. 666.

10

Czechoslovakia and hints of an impending crisis in Berlin, did a majority of Americans come

to believe that preventing war and developing foreign policy with the Soviet Union were the

most important problems facing America.25

Another stream of opinion belonged to the "realists" who did not like living with the

bomb and may have wished that it was never built, but who accepted nuclear-based policies

as the only way to assure peace—a "necessary evil" approach.26 As nuclear stockpiles

increased to a relatively significant level by the early 1950s, most of these people began to

advocate some form of "finite," or minimum number of bombs needed to deter an enemy,

deterrence.27 Others openly embraced large stockpiles of nuclear weapons, strong deterrence

(vs. finite), and an arms race to achieve superiority in numbers as the best way to guarantee

peace. There was no desire for war, or for a general nuclear exchange in the event of war,

but there was a willingness to use, or consider using, nuclear weapons in a variety of ways

should hostilities begin. Gallup Polls indicated that college-educated Americans, as opposed

to those with less schooling, were much more likely to advocate maintaining U.S. sovereign

25Gallup Poll, 19 April 1948, vol. L, pp. 726-27. In addition, people may have expressed concern and truly felt anxiety over nuclear weapons when asked, but few people acted on their own moral sentiments at any time during the Cold War. For example, when Robert C. Aldridge, a Lockheed engineer and later author of First Strike: The Logic of Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Strategy For Nuclear War (Boston: South End Press, 1983), finally left his job in 1973 because he had moral qualms about contributing to the nuclear arms race, it was a unique enough move to warrant his publishing a book. There, Aldridge claimed that many other people has the same concerns but that the security of a regular paycheck kept them from acting.

26The term "realist" is used here only in a general sense. 27Finite deterrence advocates argued that only a certain level of destructive potential was necessary to

deter war, so to continue researching and producing more weapons of ever greater power, was both wasteful and immoral since there would be more than one bomb per possible military target and the rest would be dumped on civilians. Nuclear stalemate adherents similarly posited that a certain nuclear potential could deter nuclear war so that war could be fought ethically, "the old fashioned way." Strong deterrence was the idea that nuclear weapons research, development, and deployment were to be pursued as much as possible with no self- imposed limits.

11

nuclear control and to view the development of nuclear weapons as a "good" rather than

"bad" thing.28

Another point of view on the ethical spectrum was the belief that Americans were

divinely appointed as the trustees of the bomb. At a 1946 symposium of the Episcopal

Church, Arthur H. Compton, a leading Protestant layman, went even further by stating,

"Atomic power is ours, and who can deny that it was God's will that we should have it."29

Most people who supported notions of strong deterrence usually deemed that "preemptive

strikes" had a place in strategic planning. Simply put, such a strategy called for U.S. nuclear

weapons to be unleashed on an enemy without waiting for the enemy's actual first blow, as

soon as America was sure that an adversary intended to strike the U.S. or its allies. In the

case of a conventional war already underway, preemptive strike represented a willingness to

be the first power to use nuclear weapons.

Approaching the other extreme of the spectrum were proponents of preventive war

philosophy. In the first decade after World War II, a significant, though clearly minority,

faction of Americans wanted to use the U.S. atomic monopoly, or American supremacy after

1949, to undertake a war to defeat Communism.30 Such a call to arms was often the result of

unabashed barbarism, but sometimes the argument had serious moral underpinnings. Many

patriotic people felt that war with Communist nations was inevitable. Since the United States

28 Almost every Gallup Poll dealing with the atomic bomb analyzed the results in terms of the respondent's level of education and the results were always similar. For example, a 16 March 1949 poll indicated that 59% of Americans thought it was "good" that the atomic bomb had been developed, while 29% thought it was "bad" and 12% had "no opinion." But percentages for college educated people were: 70% good, 23% bad, and 7% no opinion. High school education: 60% good, 29% bad, 11% no opinion. Grade school level education: 54% good, 31%bad, 15% no opinion. Gallup Poll, 16 March 1949, vol. II, pp. 797-98.

29Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 212. President Truman even hinted at divine intervention when he said, "We thank God that it [the atomic bomb] has come to us instead of our enemies; and we pray that he may guide us to use it in his ways and for his purposes." Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 211.

12

was clearly good while Communism was entirely evil,31 it was America's moral obligation to

conduct a "preventative" war when it could be won most easily for democracy, resulting in a

relative minimum number of casualties.

Finally, on the extreme fringe of the debate were the nuclear millenialists who

believed that the second coming of Christ and a thousand years of peace would go hand in

hand with the atomic age and a seemingly inevitable nuclear war. Billy Graham illustrated

this school of thought when at a large revivalist meeting on September 25, 1949, just two

days after President Harry S. Truman publicly announced the shocking news of a successful

Soviet atomic test, Graham shouted that because of nuclear weapons it was urgent that

everyone "repent," and, "prepare to meet thy God."32 Very few millenialists, however,

actually rejoiced at the prospect of attaining the kingdom of God via a nuclear holocaust.

The unprecedented and intense public discourse concerning nuclear weapons and war

suggested that most people believed a revolution in military history had taken place, although

only 13% of Americans polled felt that the "armed forces [were] useless except to handle

atomic bombs."33 The question of whether Americans generally felt atomic weaponry

brought a new moral dimension to war was less clear. Many people felt that nuclear

weapons presented a historically unprecedented moral dilemma. Norman Cousins, a famous

editor and writer, believed that the atomic bomb would change "every aspect of man's

30For example, a 1946 letter to the editor of the New York Daily News stated, "Russia shows by its spy activity in Canada that it badly wants the atomic bomb, so I say give the bomb to Russia the same way we gave it to the Japs." Quoted in Paul Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 81.

31Gallup poll conducted 3 July 1946, vol. I, p. 587. 30% of Americans felt that Communists within the United States should by killed or imprisoned. 16% said Communist activity should be curbed, 7% said Communists should be "watched carefully," 16% said nothing should happen to the Communists, and 25% had no opinion. The Korean War ignited calls for preventative war. Secretary of the Navy Francis Matthews and Air Force Major General Orvil Anderson were prominent leaders who spoke out publicly for such action in the summer of 1950.

32Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 239. 33Gallup Poll, 2 December 1945, vol. I, p. 544.

13

activities, from machines to morals, from physics to philosophy, from politics to poetry,"34

yet the popular feeling was that humans could properly and morally control atomic energy.

An August 20, 1945, edition of Life magazine, for example, proclaimed, "Power in society

has never been controlled by anything but morality. . . . The individual conscience against

the atomic bomb? Yes, there is no other way."35 And while 85% of Americans polled on

August 26, 1945, approved of dropping the atomic bomb, only 40% would have promoted

the use of poison gas to save American lives.36 Perhaps in American minds the atomic bomb

was not seen as some perverse new weapon without equal.

In the spectrum of opinion at the time, U.S. Air Force leaders were generally

realists.37 Most air leaders actually considered the atomic bomb to be, like any U.S.

technological advance, a very positive innovation worth exploiting. To fully understand how

these air leaders thought about the ethics of utilizing nuclear weapons, it is also extremely

important to understand that airmen equated moral permissibility with national military

necessity. Whatever the nation called upon them to do was justified because air leaders never

believed the nation would ask them to do something unjust, like the genocide of the Jews.

The means of defending American interests became almost irrelevant to the pervasive idea

that American interests must be defended by any means deemed acceptable by the American

people—the moral standard for most airmen. The ethical view of air leaders was

fundamentally the product of a guiding world-view and a common ethical outlook, even if air

leaders did demonstrate a considerable measure of individualism. The Cold War with the

34Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 29. 35Ibid., pp. 9-10. 36Gallup Poll, 26 Aug 1945, vol. I., pp. 521-22. 49% would not approve and 11% had no opinion. 37After retiring, Curtis LeMay happily asserted that the reason why calls for nuclear disarmament on

moral grounds failed after World War II was because "realism prevailed." Curtis LeMay and Dale 0. Smith, America Is In Danger (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968), p. 33.

14

Soviet Union crystallized beliefs about bombing and American moral superiority which the

two world wars and decades of training had formed.

Air Force generals early in the atomic age had been intentionally trained to be realists

and to think in plain terms.38 Most had also spent careers fighting the morally unambiguous

wars of World War I and World War II, and gaining a serious trust and appreciation for

American ideals. They experienced what were for the United States almost unparalleled

casualties in the bloodiest wars in human history.39 In the inter-war years, most early atomic

age air leaders had been persuaded by Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell and his

disciples at the U.S. Air Corps Tactical School, that the unparalleled casualties in World War

I could be avoided with strategic bombing. World War II confirmed these beliefs for airmen.

And the war further convinced air leaders that war was endemic to the human experience,

that the United States was an undeniably good force opposing evils in the world, and that the

appeasement of Hitler was a major mistake that resulted in unnecessary atrocities. By the

dawn of the atomic age, air leaders were thus intensely dedicated to the United States, the

Army Air Forces (AAF), and plans for an independent air force. So, after spending decades

serving and suffering for a nation which they saw as essentially righteous, many airmen

began to make America, in practice if not theory, their standard of right and wrong—the

single most important thing worth defending in life.

38The best work on this subject is Morris Janowitz's The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1960).

39Airmen in the U.S. and British Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) incurred higher casualty rates than any other type of Allied soldier in World War II. Casualties in the CBO amounted to fifty percent of aircrew strengths, and before it was over, 18,000 aircraft and 81,000 lives were lost. Mark K. Wells, Courage and Air Warfare: The Allied Experience in the Second World War (London: F. Cass Publishers, 1995), p. 2.

15

THE AIR FORCE VIEWS HIROSHIMA

Like most of the American public, Air Force leaders did, indeed, support dropping the

atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not because Air Force

leaders desired unbridled destruction of Japan, or even because they thought the bombings

were necessary to end the war.40 The AAF was confident that conventional strategic

bombing, primarily carried out through low-level area bombing at night by B-29s loaded

with incendiaries, had forced the Japanese surrender. In fact, the proposed land invasion of

Japan had more to do with why the Air Force supported the atomic bombings than enemy

actions did. Paradoxically, then, the Air Force supported the bombings because they

seemingly hastened the end of the war and avoided risking hundreds of thousands of

American lives with an unnecessary invasion of the Japanese mainland.

For the AAF, these beliefs were largely substantiated by the United States Strategic

Bombing Survey (Pacific War). The report concluded that "certainly prior to December 31,

1945, and in all probability prior to November 1, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if

atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no

invasion had been planned or contemplated."41 Army Air Forces leaders believed this even

before the war was over, but they knew decision makers in Washington, particularly in their

Army and Navy counterparts, had no such faith that strategic bombing alone would force the

surrender.

Hay wood A. Hansell, Jr., one of the architects of the 1941 air plan and an influential

AAF leader until his retirement in 1946, considered President Truman's decision to drop the

40In 1945, the eighth volume of the AAF's official secret "Impact" studies announced in bold print that, "With or Without the Atomic Bomb, Japan Was Through." Impact: The Army Air Forces' Confidential Picture History of World War II, Book 8, (New York: James Parton and Company, Inc., 1980), 8:.

16

atomic bomb one of the "crucial" decisions of the war. "Without this decision," he

explained, "the invasion would probably have been launched with attendant great loss of life,

in spite of the fact that Japan was already a hollow facade that soon must fall, and General

Arnold, for that reason, opposed the use of the atomic bomb."42 Generals Carl Spaatz (the

first Chief of Staff of the independent Air Force in 1947), Nathan F. Twining (another war

hero who became the Air Force Chief of Staff in 1953), and Curtis LeMay (best known as the

Commanding General of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 1948-1957), all explicitly

endorsed Hansell's conclusion.43

It seems peculiar, indeed, to support the killing of about 150,000 people of an enemy

populace because you think your own countrymen in other services are going to err by

executing an unnecessary invasion. Yet this was, in fact, at least partially the case for U.S.

air leaders at the end of the Pacific war.44 But in 1945, AAF leaders did not criticize their

commanders or "decry" the use of the atomic bombs.45 General Arnold, for example, made a

personal trip to the Pacific theater in June 1945, and in his diary he noted, "LeMay's staff

showed how Japan's industrial facilities would be completely destroyed by October 1st.

Thirty large and small cities, all to go, then Japan will have none of the things needed to

supply an Army, Navy, or Air Force. She cannot continue her fighting after her reserve

41The United States Strategic Bombing Surveys: European War and Pacific War Summaries (USSBS), (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1987, originally published in 1945), p. 107.

42Haywood Hansell, The Seven Crucial Decisions in the Strategic Air War (1945), copy available in the Haywood Hansell Manuscript Collection (HHMC), USAF Academy Special Collections Library (USAFA SCL), Colorado.

43"Newsreel Script for General Spaatz, 14 August 1945, Carl A. Spaatz Papers, Manuscript Division (MD), Library of Congress (LOC), Box 21; Interview of Carl A Spaatz, May 1965, U. S. Air Force Historical Office Interview (USAF HO), p. 23 of transcript; Interview of Nathan F. Twining, November 1965, USAF HO, p. 18 of transcript; General Curtis E. LeMay with MacKinlay Kantor, Mission with LeMay: My Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1965), p. 381.

44Modern-day Political Scientist Michael Walzer explained the fact in this scathing way: "Our purpose, then, was not to avert a 'butchery' that someone else was threatening, but one that we were threatening, and had already begun to carry out." Michael Walzer, "Supreme Emergency," War, Morality, and the Military Profession, ed. MalhamM. Wakin, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), p. 440.

17

supplies are gone."46 Yet if Arnold was against dropping the bomb, the action caused him

little anxiety, as he harbored a common desire to avenge Japanese "atrocities" which

"explained] why the Japs can expect anything."47

Most just war doctrines do not allow for striking at the enemy purely out of a desire

for revenge, yet an eye-for-an-eye mentality often attracts proponents. The fact remains that

one of the reasons President Truman listed for dropping the bomb was that, "The Japanese

began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid manyfold."48 This

vengeful stance was also prevalent among the general populace and the Air Force recognized

this fact. After retiring, Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker remembered "a strong anti-Japanese

feeling in the United States. Japanese brutality—The Bataan Death March—made the

difference. Also the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor. Ninety percent of Americans

would have killed every Japanese.49

In any event, air leaders expected their subordinates to follow orders and to view

nuclear bombing with detachment—performing the task without hesitation like the perfectly

trained muscular extensions of a human mind. General Spaatz, for example, stated: "The

military man carries out the orders of his political bosses ... so that [atomic bombing] didn't

bother me at all."50 In the early Cold War when bombers had limited range, American

bombing crews could even expect to have to follow Jimmy Doolittle's 1942 example and

45LeMay, Mission With LeMay, p. 388. 46General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold's Diary, Pacific Trip, 6-25 June 1945, Located in the Henry

Arnold/Murray Green Manuscript Collection (HAMGMC), Series 4, Box 88, Envelope 9, Diary 9. Located in the (USAFA SCL).

47Ibid. 48Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 12. 49Interview of Ira C. Eaker, May 1962, USAF HO, p. 3. A Gallup poll conducted on 19 October 1945

showed that 61% of Americans felt that the U.S. was not being tough enough on Japan. 32% felt that U.S. treatment was about right, and only 1% thought the U.S. was too harsh. Gallup Poll, 19 October 1945, p. 534.

50Spaatz Interview, May 1965, USAF HO, p. 6 of transcript. Spaatz did refuse to carry out the bombings in writing.

18

conduct one-way bombing missions (meaning they would crash land, probably in enemy

territory, after bombing a target)—this time with nuclear weapons—as high ranking officers

seriously considered such doctrine.51

In summary, AAF leaders supported the atomic bombings for three reasons: first,

because of vengeful attitudes toward Japan; second; and more significantly, because they

believed they would save untold numbers of young American troops from dying due to the

invasion plans of the army and navy leaders who were unconvinced that strategic bombing

alone would end the war; and third, and most importantly, simply because their Commander

in Chief ordered the action.

THE MORAL REVOLUTION OF AUGUST 1945?

To the AAF, the atomic bombings did not instigate any sort of moral revolution—not

even much of a military one. In the words of Ira Eaker, "air leaders realized that here was an

opportunity to put warfare on an economical, sensible, reasonable basis."52 Two decades

after Hiroshima, General Curtis LeMay still believed, "The whole damn atomic picture has

been vastly overplayed as horrible and unusual. Well, maybe it's a little bit unusual, but I

don't see that it's anymore horrible than the 200,000 Japs I burned up with incendiaries in the

first attack on Tokyo."53

51See Dale O. Smith, "One-Way Combat," Air University Quarterly Review, I (Fall 1947), pp. 55-59. Such issues, of course, beg the question whether a military officer's obligation to follow the orders of a competent authority always outweighs other moral considerations such as an obligation to humanity in general. The Nuremberg trials confirmed that a military member does bear moral responsibilities which extend beyond the limits of following orders, but it must be noted that Nazi military officers were not indicted when a link to military necessity, broadly defined, was established.

52Interview of Ira C. Eaker, May 1962, U.S. Air Force Historical Office Interview (USAF HO), p. 6 of transcript.

53Interview of General Curtis LeMay by Harry Borowski, 1974, tape (no transcript) available in Harry Borowski Manuscript Collection (HBMC), USAFA SCL.

19

To air leaders trained to be realists and privy to information that the general public

was not, many factors kept the atomic bomb from comprising an overnight change to the face

of war.54 The scarcity of bombs, the lack of trained atomic air crews and specially equipped

bombers, and the long amounts of time it took to transport and assemble atomic bombs

topped the list of constraints in the first atomic-age years. In addition, early fission weapons

were equivalent to about twenty kilotons of TNT and offered calculable destruction

proportionate to raids of several hundred B-29s loaded with high explosives and

incendiaries—something which had become rather commonplace at the close of the Pacific

War.55 Air leaders were also well aware that they were at the mercy of the President and the

Manhattan Project for technological advances and stockpiles. Finally, from 1945 through

1947, the AAF was primarily concerned with the practical problems of massive

demobilization (the AAF went from 2.2 million people in the summer of 1945 to just over

300,000 two years later) and with the creation of an Air Force separate from the Army, which

occurred in 1947.

Because Air Force leaders did not perceive a military revolution in 1945, they did not

perceive a moral one either. When asked what moral distinction he saw between fire

bombing raids and the atomic bombings, Eaker replied, "None at all."56 Other Air Force

officers, most notably Carl Spaatz and Curtis LeMay also pointed out both the similar results

54See Janowitz's, Professional Soldier, for a histoiy of officer training in the first half of the twentieth century explaining how military officers were trained to be realists. The best discussion of US nuclear limitations at the time is in Harry S. Borowski's, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment Before Korea (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).

55For example, see "Affect of the Atomic Bomb on Structures of the U.S. Military Forces," Carl Spaatz, October 1945, Spaatz Papers, MD, LOC, Box 22. "The atomic bomb is a fact... . There is no reason yet to suppose that the advent of the atomic bomb replaces the conventional type of weapons used by an air force, nor will it reduce in any way in the forseeable future the size of combat air units or number of personnel needed for the regular peacetime Air Force." This is the same conclusion the Spaatz Board (to be discussed in detail later) arrived at at the same time.

56Eaker Interview, USAF HO, May 1962, p. 4 of transcript.

20

and equally justifiable nature of atomic bombings compared to the World War II incendiary

attacks.57 LeMay further argued that while the nature of twentieth century conflicts did blend

civilians with military and industrial targets,58 the "massacre" of civilian populations was not

a revolution of strategic bombing. Although he never admitted to massacring civilians or

bombing anything but military targets, he pointed out that such devastation happened all

throughout history whenever a city was sacked.59 W. Stuart Symingtom, the first Secretary

of the Air Force, even maintained that as "long as there are powerful barbarians in the world .

. . free men are forced to protect themselves. . . . If the question of the use of the atomic

bomb be viewed with a true appreciation of humanity . . . there can be no question that its use

may be justified—in fact demanded."60

Air leaders believed that not only wars were inevitable but technological progress as

well. This belief made embracing, rather than rejecting, all new weapons almost reflexive.

General George Kenney, commander of air forces in the Southwest Pacific and the first

commander of SAC, pointed out in 1947, "It is axiomatic that no super-weapon long exists

before a superior weapon or a defense against that weapon is conceived."61 The Air Force's

very foundation—the airplane—was the product of technological advancement and underlay

all airmen's faith in technological progress.62

57Spaatz Interview, USAF HO, May 1965, p. 6 or transcript; Curtis E. LeMay interview with Harry S. Borowski, 1974, tapes and transcripts available in the Harry Borowski Manuscript Collection (HBMC), located intheUSAFASCL.

58LeMay, Mission with LeMay, p. 425. 59LeMay, Mission with LeMay, p. 384. 60"Special Report of the Secretary of the Air Force to the President and the Congress of the United

States," 9 June 1948, p. 21, HBMC, USAFA SCL. 61 George C. Kenney, "We Cannot Afford to Stop Thinking: No Aggressor Would Hesitate to Attack

US if We Had a Weak Air Force, It IS National Survival—Or National Suicide," U.S. Air Services, June 1947, p. 10.

62Historian Michael Sherry considers these air leaders' faith in technological advancement coupled with their embrace of strategic bombing to be "technological fanaticism."

21

The Air Force's emphasis on technological progress resulted in ethical views that

differed from those of other military services. For example, Admiral William D. Leahy,

Chief of Staff to the President and the presiding officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, heavily

criticized the atomic bombings by declaring, "The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima

and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. .. . [I]n being the first

to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I

was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women

and children."53

Other naval officers followed Leahy's lead, especially after April 1949, when

Secretary of Defense Louis W. Johnson canceled the Navy's plans for the USS United States,

a 65,000 ton super-carrier, in favor of plans to acquire a fleet of B-36 bombers for the Air

Force. Even though such notable military leaders as Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower, and

George Marshall supported the Air Force, the famous "Revolt of the Admirals" soon

followed. In October 1949, Rear Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie, the U.S. Navy's Liaison Officer

to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), testified before the House Armed Services

Committee. He declared that the Air Force's contingency plan for a war with the Soviet

Union, which included using atomic bombs, was a "morally wrong . . . ruthless and barbaric

policy" which would lead to "the breakdown of those standards of morality which have been

a guiding force in this democracy since its inception."64 That the Air Force often ignored

such ethical allegations advanced by the Navy was demonstrated by a comment by Eaker

63It must be noted, however, that Leahy went on to state, "However, I am forced to a reluctant conclusion that for the security of my own country which has been the guiding principle in my approach to all problems faced during my career, there is but one course open to us: Until the United Nations, or some world organization, can guarantee—and have the power to enforce that guarantee—that the world will be spared the terrors of atomic warfare, tiie United States must have more and better atom bombs than any potential enemy. William D. Leahy, / Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: WhitÜesey House, 1950), pp. 442-443.

22

some years later: "The Navy made a great point about strategic bombing being immoral.

Then came Polaris [the Navy's submarine launched nuclear ballistic missile project] and it

was no longer immoral."65

Other air leaders such as Twining, Air Force Chief of Staff from June 1953 until June

1957, were fully aware that, "many thoughtful people in the world today are deeply

concerned about the moral implications of atomic bombing."66 But like Eaker, Twining was

disenchanted with the "unusually large number" of naval officers with "strong moral scruples

against dropping bombs on cities," and who continually raised the moral debate whenever

strategic bombing was discussed. Twining felt that "most" naval officers were "out of

character as guardians of our national morality," implying that they were better off as

guardians of national security.67

There were two major explanations for the discrepant moral views of the Navy and

Air Force concerning nuclear weapons in the early atomic age. One was the cynical view,

advanced by Ira Eaker, that Naval officers raised moral objections only out of jealousy of the

Air Force's disproportionately large share of defense appropriations, involved in the reliance

on strategic bombing as the first line of national defense, a role filled by the Navy since the

late nineteenth century.68 But even General Twining recognized that "many" moral

objections were "unquestionably sincere."69 At least part of the disagreement was because

64Quoted in Boyer, by the Bomb's Early Light, p. 344. 65Eaker Interview, USAF HO, May 1962, p. 7. 66Nathan F. Twining, "Memorandum for Colonel Noel F. Parrish," 13 August 1951, pp. 4-5, Nathan

Twining Manuscript Collection (NTMC), box 1, folder 2, USAFA SCL. 67Ibid. For a considerable collection of documents related to the Air Force/Navy debate (especially

concerning the Navy's objections to the B-36, the Air Force's objections to the proposed 65,000 ton supercarrier, and the Air Force's distaste for Navy leader's tactics in the inter-service feud), see the Hoyt S. Vanderiberg papers, Box 52, MD, LOC.

68Air leaders were conscious of this fact. See LeMay, America Is In Danger, pp. 30-31. 69Twining, "Memorandum for Colonel Noel A. Parrish," 13 August 1951, pp. 4-5, NTMC, box 1,

folder 2.

23

since World War I, air forces had grown accustomed to bombing, and planning to bomb,

targets in and around enemy cities, something destined to always produce civilian casualties.

This strategic capability was the raison d'etre for an independent air force. The Army,

likewise, was less averse to strategic bombing because it was familiar with conducting

operations near cities and towns which threatened civilians (and, to a degree, because the Air

Force was an outgrowth of the Army). The Navy, on the other hand, continued to operate on

the high seas and in littoral regions where almost comparatively little would result in direct

civilian death. Thus, each service became morally conditioned to accept what they were

doing as just. Atomic bombing fit neatly into the Air Force's ethical framework in 1945

because air leaders did not associate any military or moral revolution with the bomb. It took

years of growing accustomed to nuclear weapons before the Navy's thinking fully

incorporated these weapons as well.

But just as Eaker claimed economics and bureaucratic pressures influenced the

Navy's eventual embrace of nuclear weapons (i. e. the Polaris missile), the same may have

been true for the Air Force at times. After retiring, General Twining explained how in 1945

and 1946, "The military services battled largely to justify their very existence."70 Annual

U.S. military expenditures dropped from over $80 billion in 1945 to under $12 billion two

years later—the very years air leaders were trying to convince politicians to spend money to

establish an independent Air Force equal to the Army and Navy. The atomic bomb also

forced significant public debates over the future utility of traditional military forces at the

time,71 and the AAF was distinguished as the only nuclear-capable service. It is easy to see

70Twining, Neither Liberty Nor Safety, p. 20. 71In December 1945, for example, Gallup polls asked Americans if they thought armed forces were

"useless" except to handle atomic bombs. 13% responded in the affirmative. Gallup poll, 2 December 1945, vol. I, p. 544.

24

why one might argue that AAF leaders rationalized the morality of the bomb just to save

their service. This explanation is somewhat problematic, however, because although air

leaders always wanted nuclear weapons after Hiroshima, it was not until after the Soviet

threat solidified, and the Air Force gained independence in 1947, that air leaders vigorously

pursued a nuclear strategic Air Force72 In 1945, for example, they were careful to note that

atomic weaponry did not yet alter air force plans for a 400,000 man, seventy-group Air Force

which would still largely use conventional weapons.73 The atomic bomb, which alone could

deliver the same destruction as almost 1,000 B-29s, was a boost to strategic bombing. But it

was almost as much a threat to the AAF's plans for a large post-war service as it was an aid

in the lean financial years prior to the Korean War.

THE FIRST ATOMIC AUTUMN

On September 14, 1945, General Henry H. Arnold and his deputy commander, Ira C.

Eaker, ordered Generals Carl A. Spaatz, Hoyt S. Vandenberg, and Lauris Norstad,

accompanied by Colonel W.P. Fisher as a recorder, to convene a board "to determine the

effect of the atomic bomb on the size, organization, and composition of the postwar Air

Force."74 Spaatz presented the results of the board to Arnold on October 23, 1945, and

72In June 1947, for example, there were only 9 atomic devices in the U.S. arsenal, and on December 31,1946, only 23 AAF B-29s were nuclear capable. In addition, only ten nuclear-trained combat crews existed. David Alan Rosenberg, "U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, 1945 to 1950," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 38:5 (May 1982), pp. 25-30. It was not until President Truman became alarmed at the low stockpile in 1947, and Curtis LeMay took charge of SAC in the fall of 1948, that the Air Force began to ardently pursue and acquire a formidable nuclear arsenal. See also Harry Borowski, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment Before Korea (Westport Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).

73See the conclusions of the Spaatz report (to be discussed) in October 1945. Carl A. Spaatz to H. H. Arnold, response to 'Orders,'" 23 October 1945, HBMC, USAFA SCL.

74Ibid. Plans to incorporate the atomic bomb into the Air Force were not contemplated, at least on an institutional level, prior to Hiroshima simply because nobody in the Air Staff planning for the post-war Air Force knew about the bomb (the staff responsible for such planning was known as the "Post War Division" of the Air Staffs Plans Division). For a further discussion see Perry McCoy Smith, The Air Force Plans For Peace, 1943-1945 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), p. 16.

25

Arnold approved the report "without qualification."75 Therefore, the signatories to the Spaatz

Board report included Arnold, Spaatz, and Vandenberg, the first three atomic age

commanders of the AAF and U.S. Air Force. The other general officer, Lauris Norstad,

would become the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Within months of Hiroshima,

then, the AAF commanders plotted a course for their service in the atomic age by

consciously deciding how to fit the atomic bomb into their existing notions of strategic

bombing, strong deterrence, and technological progress.76 These barons of air power would

never turn back from the course they set in the fall of 1945.

The Spaatz Board was intended to cover the general period of 1945-1955, and it took

into account the expensive nature and current scarcity of atomic bombs, the fact that B-29s

would deliver the weapon for the forseeable future, and the assumption that other nations

would eventually develop the bomb. In the end, the board offered seven conclusions:

a) The atomic bomb does not at this time warrant a material change in our present conception of the employment, size, organization, and composition of the post- war Air Force.

b) The atomic bomb has not altered our basic concept of the strategic air offensive but has given us an additional weapon.

c) Forces using non-atomic bombs will be required for use against targets which cannot be effectively or economically attacked with the atomic bomb.

d) An adequate system of outlying strategic bases must be established and maintained.

e) A system of national defense to provide for maximum adaptability to new weapons must be established. It should be maintained at maximum effectiveness and should be capable of immediate expansion.

f) An intelligence organization that will know at all times the strategic vulnerability, capabilities, and probable intentions of any potential enemy is essential.

g) A large scale scientific research and development program concerned with the development of new weapons is mandatory to insure out national security.77

75Carl A. Spaatz to H.H. Arnold, response to "Orders," 23 October 1945, p. 9, HBMC, USAFA SCL. 76Some Air Force historians have noted that high level air leaders began to comprehend deterrence

strategy in the spring of 1945. See George F. Lemmer, The Air Force and the Concept of Deterrence, 1945- 1950 (USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, June 1963).

77Carl A. Spaatz to H.H. Arnold, response to "Orders," 23 October 1945, HBMC, USAFA SCL.

26

Points (a) and (b) signified the AAF's view of the atomic bomb as non-revolutionary.78

General Norstad did not believe atomic and missile weaponry would force changes to Air

Force composition, equipment, or strategy for another five years.79 The board also valued all

technological progress and looked forward to a large nuclear military system in the future.

Envisioning a formidable, nuclear-capable enemy, the board further asserted that the Air

Force "must" be prepared for "(1) Preventative or Retaliatory [action] (2) Defense against

attacks of all kinds."80 The first of these carried huge moral repercussions. "Preparing for

preventative action" was considered by many to be nothing more than preparing to deliver a

first strike under the auspices of self-defense, but it was also unclear exactly what the Spaatz

and others really meant by the phrase "preventative" action.81 It seems that without

necessarily advocating either, the air leaders were willing to conduct both, under orders,

regardless of other considerations.82 The Spaatz board also observed that "the atomic bomb

in its present form is an offensive weapon for use against large urban and industrial targets."83

The report did not include a rigorous discussion of nuclear strategy per se, but the board was

78While the Spaatz board was meeting, General Arnold explained to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 2 October 1945 that the Air Force required a minimum of 400,000 men and 70 groups of airplanes. See John T. Greenwood, "The Emergence of the Post-War Strategic Air Force, 1945-1953," Air Power and Warfare (Proceedings of the Eighth Military History Symposium, USAF Academy, 1978) (Washington, Office of Air Force History, 1979), p. 217.

79Lauris Norstad, Presentation given to the President "Postwar Military Establishment," 29 October 1946, p. 5, Vandenberg papers, Box 63, MD, LOC.

80Carl A. Spaatz to H.H. Arnold, response to "Orders," 23 October 1945, HBMC, USAFA, SCL. 81Preemptive strike called for delivering a nuclear blow when an enemy attack was imminent and

unavoidable or when conventional war had already begun but nuclear weapons had not yet been used; preventative war was usually considered much more contentious because it called for war when it was not necessarily imminent in order to take advantage of one's own temporary military advantage.

82See, for example, a transcript of a 22 November 1946 ABC broadcast on "National Security" in which broadcaster Raymond Swing interviewed Ira Eaker and summed up Eaker's position this way; "in the world that it is the only true safety for this country, and especially its industrial workers, is to be prepared, physically and mentally, to strike first; for if we are to survive we must prevent the launching of atomic bombs, rockets, and guided missiles. That means an end to any moral niceties about declarations of war and immunization of civilians." Transcript available in Eaker papers, box 1:38, speeches file #2, MD, LOC.

83Carl A Spaatz to H.H. Arnold, response to "Orders," 23 October 1945, p. 3, HBMC, USAFA SCL.

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obviously not averse to the prospect of dropping the bomb on enemy cities in the future, just

as had been done against Japan.

The importance of events and thinking during that first atomic autumn cannot be

overstated. Air leaders at that time reacted to the bomb exactly as one would expect men

trained to be realists and sworn to defend the United States would react: loyally, having just

prosecuted the massive and bloody air campaigns of World War II. The atomic bomb and

the concept of deterrence fit neatly into their moral framework, which considered strategic

bombing, even if it caused civilian casualties, to be the most efficient way to end or deter a

war, with as little damage and suffering for the United States as possible.

INTERNATIONAL CONTROLS AND THE SOVIET THREAT

While most airmen advocated a strong military as the best security, some AAF

officers were prominent in the effort to empower the United Nations to control atomic

weapons in 1945 and 1946. In December 1945, Theodore von Karman's Toward New

Horizons, a work commissioned by the Air Force about future air power technologies that

many air leaders like H.H. Arnold regarded as prophetic, asserted: "international control of

atomic energy . . . seems to be the most probable solution of the atomic problem within the

next decades. The main responsibility of the Armed Forces will be the enforcement of

international agreements."84 The air leader who worked most vigorously toward this idea was

General George Kenney, the four star general who lost out to Spaatz for the AAF's

Commanding General position at the end of 1945. In January 1946, Kenney was sent to

London to be the special advisor on military affairs for the United States delegation to the

84Von Kannen, Theodore, et. al., Toward New Horizons, December 1945, p. 6 of introduction, copy available in Spaatz papers, MD, LOC.

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United Nations.85 Kenney spent so much time at his UN job that when he was also given

command of SAC in March 1946, he rarely commanded the new outfit in person. Kenney

even bragged about how the UN would have its own land, sea, and air forces just like any

nation, and he recommended the U.S. should allow its military forces to be called upon by

the UN Security Council.86 Such comments upset the War Department and Spaatz.

Hay wood S. Hansell was another AAF officer who felt that, "reliance on an armed

standoff or 'balance of terror' for U.S. security is not compatible with long-term U.S.

objectives."87 Before his retirement in 1946, Hansell wrote: "U.S. military policies must

support the long-term political objective of eliminating the causes of the US-Soviet

confrontation." Surprisingly, even after his retirement and during the height of the Cold

War, General Nathan F. Twining agreed. "Anybody who's not for nuclear test ban and

disarmament shouldn't be alive." This double-edged quote by General Twining at once

expressed a hopeful liberal sentiment for the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons with a

starkly opposite militant zeal. And predictably, Twining was very conservative: "I mean it's

a thing we should be working at all the time. . . . But at the same time we must be very

careful that as we go down the road, we don't get big hearted. We must have safeguards in

every step of the way."88

While AAF officers held some hopes for international limits or controls on war or

atomic energy through 1946, these were largely squelched by the new-year. The Baruch plan

for international atomic energy control failed in the UN and the Soviet Union was emerging

as a clear threat to American interests. Consequently, the Air Force began to oppose

85Hany S. Borowski, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment Before Korea (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1982), p. 36.

86Ibid., p. 140. 87Haywood S. Hansell, Jr.'s, "The Balance of Terror" undated draft, HHMC, USAFA SCL.

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ardently, frequently on moral grounds, most international agreements and calls for

disarmament. In the wake of the failed Baruch plan, General Kenney left his UN post. As he

explained in June 1947, with obvious reference to the Soviets, "I would like to say that

[weapons of mass destruction] will be outlawed by international agreement, that moral

reasons will prevent their use in warfare. [But] the history of war affords little hope that an

aggressor striving for a knockout blow, or nations fighting for their lives, will be restricted in

their conduct of war by moral factors. It has not been morality but expediency that has

governed the use of weapons. . . ,"89 In 1948, Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart

Symington declared: "The world is aware that the proposal of the United States was rejected,

and military leadership is unanimous in the conviction that unilateral abandonment of the

weapon by the United States could be suicidal for the nation."90 That same year, Air Force

Chief of Staff Carl Spaatz told the House Appropriations Committee that "the Soviet Union

clearly aims to dominate [Western Europe] sooner or later by one means or another."91 As

the Iron Curtain descended in early 1947, air leaders began to embrace strategic atomic

bombing more than ever, as the quintessential hope for ensuring America's peace and

prosperity.

Thus as the Cold War began, most officers began to view people who advocated

controls or limits on nuclear weapons as threats to national security—and the security of the

United States was the guiding moral principle in air officers' lives. By 1947, officers like

^Interview of General Nathan F. Twining, November 1962, USAF HO, p. 37-38. 89George C. Kenney, "World War II is out of Date," Air Force, November 1947, p. 30. 90Special Report of the Secretary of the Air Force to the President and the Congress of the United

States, 9 June 1948, p. 20, HBMC. President Harry S. Truman adopted this as his official view on 14 July 1949 when he informed his top military advisors, "I am of the opinion we'll never obtain international control. Since we can't obtain international control we must be strongest in atomic weapons. Quoted by David Alan Rosenberg, "The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945-1960," Strategy and Nuclear Deterrence, ed. by Steven E. Miller (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 131-132.

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Major Alexander de Seversky discounted even "environmental" talk over nuclear fallout and

"humanitarian" arguments against strategic bombing as nothing more than "scare

propaganda," the roots of which were "distinctly pink, if not red, in coloration."92 By 1953,

Chief of Staff Twining was equally concerned: "I can remember," Twining told the JCS, "no

general or press attitude before World Wars I and II which branded as immoral the actions of

a nation which were necessary to the defense ofthat nation. . . . For the first time in history

we are confronted with a threat of such a nature and magnitude that it can literally destroy the

nation, and, ironically, we have philosophized ourselves into a passive and inactive frame of

mind ... we have accepted this passive and negative attitude because we have been skillfully

propagandized by the Soviet Union."93

CLOAKING AND DENYING

Many officers began to equate "moral sentiment" with weakness, irresponsible self-

righteousness, and outright Communism, and thus they often denied or cloaked their "moral

sentiment." After retiring, Ira Eaker stated, "I never felt there was any moral sentiment

among leaders of the AAF. A military man has to be trained and inured to do the job.

Otherwise you'd never do the job. . . . The business of sentiment never enters into it at all. . .

. When I watched bombs falling and hitting houses and churches I had a distaste for the

whole business but they were shooting at us. You don't have any moral question at all."94

91Testimony of General Carl Spaatz, Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, before the House Appropriations Committee," 1 April 1948, p. 1, Spaatz papers, box 29, MD, LOC.

92Major Alexander P. de Seversky, "A Lecture on Air Power," Air University Quarterly Review, 1:2 (Fall 1947), p. 37.

93"Memorandum of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on "The Coming National Crisis,'" 3 September 1953, p. 4, Twining papers, MD, LOC.

94Eaker interview, USAF HO, May 1962.

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Curtis LeMay agreed that in World War II at least, "to worry about the morality of what we

were doing [was] nuts. A soldier has to fight. We fought."95

But Eaker's statement did indicate moral concerns, hidden by a fudging of

definitions. Eaker considered accomplishing his "job" to be proper; he did not see anything

wrong with directing a war effort against any "target" which might help win a war and thus

accomplish the military task. At the same time, he did not advocate the wanton destruction

of houses and churches. Eaker's denial of "moral sentiment" was even contradicted by other

words and actions. For example, Eaker strongly opposed a proposed terror bombing

operation in World War II because it would be ineffective (95 percent of the casualties would

be civilian) and because, "we should never allow the history of this war to convict us of

throwing the strategic bomber against the man on the street."96 Eaker's line for moral

permissibility was simply the same as his line for military necessity. Most other Air Force

officers also drew the line of moral permissibility at the point of military necessity. For

example, Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the B-29 Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on

Hiroshima, stated: "Let's face it, if you're going to fight a war, you fight it to win and use

any method you can and somebody's going to get hurt. All right, if you can kill a mess of

them at one time and get it over with that much quicker, I think you're better off in the long

run."97

95LeMay, Mission with LeMay, p. 383. 96The proposed terror bombing operation was operation CLARION. Quoted in David R. Mets, Master

ofAirpower: General Carl A. Spaatz (Navato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), p. 271. Original available in Spaatz papers, box 20, MD, LOC.

97Interview of Tibbets with Kenneth Leigh, December 1960, transcript available at the USAFA SCL.

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Like other air leaders, Curtis LeMay was torn within himself when it came to

morality.98 He felt that it was "nuts" to consider morality in war, yet at the same time he

stated, "a sense of morality and a decent judgment must function along with whatever new

facilities we acquire or else all the effort is in vain."99 LeMay also stated, "we [in the

bombardment business] just weren't bothered by the morality of the question. If we could

shorten the war, we wanted to shorten it.100 He did not even mention his own moral emphasis

on shortening wars to save American lives, nor did he seem to remember that at other times,

he labeled all his World War II targets as "morally justified."101 LeMay also had a major

problem with the connotations of the word morality. If morality meant avoiding war at all

costs, he thought it was both ridiculous and impossible. By the end of his career, LeMay

would become thoroughly annoyed with the "Whiz Kids [Secretary of Defense Robert S.

McNamara's assistants] . . . writers, clergymen, savants, and self-appointed philosophers,"

who were constantly criticizing him and the Air Force, while support supporting any anti-

military agenda that came along.102 LeMay was especially disenchanted with people who

found it "acceptable" to kill millions of people "under the most horrible circumstances" in a

98Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). One of Schaffer's salient points is that many air leaders were torn within themselves over the issue of morality in World War II.

"LeMay, Mission with LeMay, p. 383; p. 570. 100LeMay, America Is In Danger, p. 381. 101LeMay, America Is In Danger, p. viii. 102For a more in depth discussion, see LeMay, Mission with LeMay, p. 380. When addressing

religiously sensitive crowds at places such as the University of Notre Dame, LeMay always carefully crafted his speeches to appear the defender of morality: "It is clear," he told Notre Dame students in 1956, "that there are two social philosophies now in conflict. These are democracy based on Christian principles, and Communism based on atheistic, materialistic principles," In the face of the Soviet threat he told them the solution was simple; "superior long-range nuclear air power and adequate defensive air power poised in readiness on a continuing basis. LeMay papers, Address to the University of Notre Dame, 22 February 1956, box 71, MD, LOC.

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limited war, yet considered it wrong to drop a few atomic bombs, and kill far less people, at

the start of a conflict to "get it over with."103

To LeMay, just conduct in war (jus in bello) was dictated by whether an action would

help one's own side win the war. He also argued a utilitarian view of war, explaining that,

"actually I think it is more immoral to use less force, than it is to use more. If you use less

force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the

struggle."104 In all cases, however, the greatest ethical action LeMay felt he could take, as a

soldier, was to execute forcefully the legal orders of his political superiors and to protect the

lives of the young Americans he sent off to battle. During World War II, LeMay wrote

privately that, "it hurts like hell to lose . . . these kids," and twenty-five years later he wrote

that he still had not grown "callused" to death.105

LeMay and Eaker exemplified most air leaders at the time; they were very concerned

with issues of right and wrong, were not inured to death, and possessed no lust for blood,

although they thought at some points that violence was quite necessary. They valued the

lives of American servicemen much more than enemy civilians, but they generally cared for

humanity and, above all, they were committed to the Air Force and to America.

Furthermore, they felt that if something was truly "necessary" militarily, it could not be

wrong morally.106 Twining even felt that the U.S. had to use its most powerf